OK Computer

Certain Songs #1773: Radiohead – “Karma Police”

March 12, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: OK Computer
Year: 1997

. . .

For a minute there, I lost myself. I lost myself.

I’ve only ever seen Radiohead in concert one time. But it was a pretty great time: at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco on April 2, 1998. Oh, and the opening band was Spiritualized, which was as on point as you could possibly want, ranking up there for me with The Clash opening for The Who in 1982 or The Hold Steady opening for the Replacements in 2014. I guess these types of bills only happen every 16 years. Looking forward to what happens in 2030. If there is a 2030.

Certain Songs #1772: Radiohead – “Subterranean Homesick Alien”

March 11, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: OK Computer
Year: 1997

. . .

While I kind of suspect that “Subterranean Homesick Alien” was written because someone came up with Dylan-referencing title and they all thought was too good not to write a song around it, it’s also one of the coolest, spookiest songs on this cool, spooky album.

Set around a strutting, disjointed Phil Selway beat, echoing electric piano and guitars that sound like spaceships that are hovering just out of your peripheral vision “Subterranean Homesick Alien” plays with multiple meanings of “alien,” as he sounds so alienated from his life that he welcomes abduction from aliens he figures see us as entertainment.

Certain Songs #1771: Radiohead – “Paranoid Android”

March 10, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: OK Computer
Year: 1997

. . .

Radiohead have always had a sense of humour that never quite made it into their public image. But it’s there, lurking in the background of their intensity. After all, their first album was named after a Jerky Boys routine — which just dates it even more — and one of their best songs is named after a character in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, whom I’m going to call Marvin, and whose sour attitude on life was matched only by the shit Douglas Adams continually dumped on the character.

Also kinda funny was that they made the 6:24 “Paranoid Android” into a single, kind of the 1990s version of “Roundabout,” though not nearly as big as “Roundabout” was in the U.S. Though one thing they two songs had in common was a long organ solo. At least at first: one of the original takes had a very long keyboard solo that they subsequently edited out because apparently it was too much like Deep Purple. As if that’s a bad thing!!!

Certain Songs #1770: Radiohead – “Airbag”

March 9, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: OK Computer
Year: 1997

. . .

OK. Here we go.

Two-plus decades down the line, OK Computer is universally considered one of the all-time greatest albums ever recorded, and I am certainly not here to rain on its parade. That said, like Marquee Moon, it’s kinda front-loaded: most of the greatest songs appear in the first half of the record. And by “greatest,” I of course mean “my favorite.”

Like the opening track, “Airbag,” which sets the tone for the record. Driven by Phil Selway’s jumping, cut-up beat — influenced by DJ Shadow, and then cut up and looped by Selway & Thom Yorke — “Airbag” immediately drops you into a universe you’ve never heard before. A universe full of shimmering arpeggiated guitars, mellotrons, tape effects and a Colin Greenwood bassline that plays hide-and-seek with the rest of the song.